Book Club with Shantrelle P. Lewis | “Mojo Workin'”: The Old African-American Hoodoo System

A native of New Orleans, Shantrelle P. Lewis (b. 1978) is a 2014 United Nations Programme for People of African Descent Fellow and 2012-13 Andy Warhol Curatorial Fellow. She is a U.S. based curator and researcher who travels internationally researching Diasporic aesthetics, spirituality and the survival and nuances of Transnational African Diasporan communities. Her traveling curatorial initiative The Dandy Lion Project, examines Global Black Dandyism through photography and film. The former Director and Curator of the McKenna Museum of African American Art, Lewis has been named the 2017 Juror of Louisiana Contemporary at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. Other exhibits and projects have been on view in institutions throughout the U.S. and Europe. She has written for Slate, NKA: Journal for Contemporary African Art and Art Papers. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, New York Magazine, The Washington Post, British Journal of Photography, Philadelphia Inquirer, NPR, BBC, The Art Newspaper, Artsy, Art Net and Huffingtonpost. Since 2011, Shantrelle has been immersed in researching ties between the Dutch Caribbean and the African Diaspora at-large. Currently, she is directing and producing The Black Dutchman, a documentary about the Dutch blackface tradition Zwarte Piet and Black identity in the Netherlands. Her first book, Dandy Lion: The Black Dandy and Street Style, was recently published by Aperture. Lewis is a Lucumi priest of Sango.